Ghezra

I must admit, I'm a little confused.

Novaquark released the in-game pre-alpha footage. It looked awesome, it was smooth, it conveyed all of the tech they promised and it showed how it was possible to have the vision they have.

Yet, when I went on the subreddit, 133 subscribed.

I come on the forums, and there are just a couple dozen active people.

WHAT is HAPPENING. I feel like I've gone insane.
 
How can this game not have a larger following? We've been griping as a community for a game like this for years. Years and years. Practically every day there are posts in Space Engineers of people wishing for a larger scope, more multiplayer. Every day on the No Mans Sky reddit about wishing for multiplayer and more customization. Every day in modded minecraft about something new and progressive but somehow keeps that emergent game-play.

These are very different games, every one of them, and yet the ideals they dream for are almost all contained in Dual Universe.

There are so many broken promises out there, Unsung Story, Broken Age, Areal, Sticks and Starships, Planet Explorers, on and on. Games that never even made it to the stage that Dual Universe is showing as a PRE Alpha.

I'm telling all of my friends. I'm sharing photos and videos like a 35 year old woman who just got her third cat. And I hope you are all doing the same.

This is a game we have all been waiting for for a long time. Let's make sure they know it.

I must admit, I'm a little confused.

Novaquark released the in-game pre-alpha footage. It looked awesome, it was smooth, it conveyed all of the tech they promised and it showed how it was possible to have the vision they have.

Yet, when I went on the subreddit, 133 subscribed.

I come on the forums, and there are just a couple dozen active people.

WHAT is HAPPENING. I feel like I've gone insane.
 
How can this game not have a larger following? We've been griping as a community for a game like this for years. Years and years. Practically every day there are posts in Space Engineers of people wishing for a larger scope, more multiplayer. Every day on the No Mans Sky reddit about wishing for multiplayer and more customization. Every day in modded minecraft about something new and progressive but somehow keeps that emergent game-play.

These are very different games, every one of them, and yet the ideals they dream for are almost all contained in Dual Universe.

There are so many broken promises out there, Unsung Story, Broken Age, Areal, Sticks and Starships, Planet Explorers, on and on. Games that never even made it to the stage that Dual Universe is showing as a PRE Alpha.

I'm telling all of my friends. I'm sharing photos and videos like a 35 year old woman who just got her third cat. And I hope you are all doing the same.

This is a game we have all been waiting for for a long time. Let's make sure they know it.

I vote for a decaying Alien research facility with broken down, rusty probing hardware.

I gave up on getting what people chose and don't chose long ago. When no space sim MMO was out yet, people yearned for one years and years, like, "Imagine Elite, but every other ship is controlled by a player - wow!". Than Jumpgate came out delivering exactly that - even improving on other space sims in many aspects even if it had been just a singleplayer game. And nobody cared. It stayed a niche game for more than a decade despite it's briliance - for me it is still the best space MMO that ever existed, and I think most of those who played it would agree. But most fans of Elite never played it or even heard of it. (It would have been easy to find at the time by just googling "space MMO".)
 
A small (but still profitable) niche can actually be a good thing though. Like, if thousands of ships in one battle (which I think is a silly and overrated goal anyway) won't happen simply because there are not enough players to make this a likely event in DU, there is no longer an excuse for dull tab targeting instead of satisfying combat mechanics.

Don't worry good sir. The herds will come into the game when they see a youtuber trying the game and seeing automated mechs acting as sentinels or pets.

I've told everyone I know personally several times.
 
Some are just pessimists and don't like to wait for a game. Dont want to get their hopes up.
 
Others just dont care, they are burned out on kick starters, green lights and everything.
 
And MANY MANY "GAMERS" just want to complain about something. They do not want to contribute any ideas, they just want to say something and sound important, but dont actually care about games.

I must admit, I'm a little confused.

Novaquark released the in-game pre-alpha footage. It looked awesome, it was smooth, it conveyed all of the tech they promised and it showed how it was possible to have the vision they have.

Yet, when I went on the subreddit, 133 subscribed.

I come on the forums, and there are just a couple dozen active people.

WHAT is HAPPENING. I feel like I've gone insane.
 
How can this game not have a larger following? We've been griping as a community for a game like this for years. Years and years. Practically every day there are posts in Space Engineers of people wishing for a larger scope, more multiplayer. Every day on the No Mans Sky reddit about wishing for multiplayer and more customization. Every day in modded minecraft about something new and progressive but somehow keeps that emergent game-play.

These are very different games, every one of them, and yet the ideals they dream for are almost all contained in Dual Universe.

There are so many broken promises out there, Unsung Story, Broken Age, Areal, Sticks and Starships, Planet Explorers, on and on. Games that never even made it to the stage that Dual Universe is showing as a PRE Alpha.

I'm telling all of my friends. I'm sharing photos and videos like a 35 year old woman who just got her third cat. And I hope you are all doing the same.

This is a game we have all been waiting for for a long time. Let's make sure they know it.

I must admit, I'm a little confused.

Novaquark released the in-game pre-alpha footage. It looked awesome, it was smooth, it conveyed all of the tech they promised and it showed how it was possible to have the vision they have.

Yet, when I went on the subreddit, 133 subscribed.

I come on the forums, and there are just a couple dozen active people.

WHAT is HAPPENING. I feel like I've gone insane.
 
How can this game not have a larger following? We've been griping as a community for a game like this for years. Years and years. Practically every day there are posts in Space Engineers of people wishing for a larger scope, more multiplayer. Every day on the No Mans Sky reddit about wishing for multiplayer and more customization. Every day in modded minecraft about something new and progressive but somehow keeps that emergent game-play.

These are very different games, every one of them, and yet the ideals they dream for are almost all contained in Dual Universe.

There are so many broken promises out there, Unsung Story, Broken Age, Areal, Sticks and Starships, Planet Explorers, on and on. Games that never even made it to the stage that Dual Universe is showing as a PRE Alpha.

I'm telling all of my friends. I'm sharing photos and videos like a 35 year old woman who just got her third cat. And I hope you are all doing the same.

This is a game we have all been waiting for for a long time. Let's make sure they know it.

Dual Universe is using Unigine, and here's a demonstration of the water in it:
 

The game was only recently released at E3 and hasn't been really publicly know for very long. Also while there are a few videos there is no where near the same amount that NMS and SE have. There are also a number of people just lurking and waiting for that time where they can play the game.

I think there are so many good things that can come from this game.

I'm excited to watch it develop.
 
I need to start thinking about the types of mysterious ruins I'll place on random planets to have people stumble into them and wonder if they are generated or not. lol

A spaceship graveyard on a planet would be a cool idea with giant Kilometer long ships to small fighters, People will wonder what went on. Was there a space battle?

But also, just because LUA is the coding engine you can write your bot script in, doesn't mean the API it has access to will be as all encompassing, as some have mentioned to a degree.

My thoughts go to modded Minecraft and the ComputerCraft mod. You had a 'Turtle' miner that you could program and there were rudimentary programs for movement and excavation, but this still required user input eventually both in the addition of more fuel as the process went on and in emptying the ever filling drop inventory.

I do appreciate games that reward creativity and design. If you can design cleverly a way to automate mining through the use of the tools you have but it took effort and materials and design, Why not let them have it?

The argument of it will destroy the economy is an interesting one, but inflation and prices will go as they go. Iron will be useful to build. So even though miners flood the market wastefully with iron, there are those that will buy it up at its cheaper price because they are trying to build a spacestation, or a new player trying to build out their first ship. Who hasn't been on WoW and seen someone flood the market with leathers only to buy them all up and resell them at a higher price? The market will adjust and people will do what they will to make money.

If mining iron no longer becomes profitable, how do they pay to keep the lights on? They'll have to modify and adapt their designs to mine other things, survive on other things. Then iron will go lapse again as another space station or capitol ship is build that destroys the market stock.

I'm not arguing for no moderation, but I don't believe we should limit ingenuity because some people could potentially make autonomous mining bots which can also be hunted for scrap since they don't have a human in them and can be easily fought since they are just following a code. I'm arguing that the same API that could provide mindless mining drones could also provide an unknown host of well thought out and never before seen creative robotics that make you just say, "wow.. I had no idea that was possible with this game." And those moments are not cheaply bought.

I don't know if any of you have played Artemis, but if you haven't, you should look into how that plays out.

Sure the different Elements will provide different controls and such. It would be relatively possible for a single person to maneuver a ship. But when you factor in sensors, movement, defenses, offenses, etc etc, there simple isn't enough WAYS a player can operate it singly.

Having specific stations for people with devoted screens with the fine details of that section, so Weapons control, Communications control, engineering, maneuvering, And maybe all the inputs feeding up to a captain who only sees the bigger picture indications and relies on his crew to do their job. This would be the best ship. The Outlaw Star of the galaxy. Multi-manned ships will begin to easily out perform single manned ships, even with advancements in AI control.

This will start the break down of the different classes of ship. There could be large single man frigates, multi-manned destroyers, etc. Dual-piloted fighters that have a pilot and a gunner so that one focuses on dodging and positioning while the other focuses on aiming and countermeasures.

...I sorta like Dual Universe a lot now.

Thank you, Dhara Elysande. First of her name. Pirate of the Coalition. Flyer of the dread ships.

I don't know if any of you have played Artemis, but if you haven't, you should look into how that plays out.

Sure the different Elements will provide different controls and such. It would be relatively possible for a single person to maneuver a ship. But when you factor in sensors, movement, defenses, offenses, etc etc, there simple isn't enough WAYS a player can operate it singly.

Having specific stations for people with devoted screens with the fine details of that section, so Weapons control, Communications control, engineering, maneuvering, And maybe all the inputs feeding up to a captain who only sees the bigger picture indications and relies on his crew to do their job. This would be the best ship. The Outlaw Star of the galaxy. Multi-manned ships will begin to easily out perform single manned ships, even with advancements in AI control.

This will start the break down of the different classes of ship. There could be large single man frigates, multi-manned destroyers, etc. Dual-piloted fighters that have a pilot and a gunner so that one focuses on dodging and positioning while the other focuses on aiming and countermeasures.

...I sorta like Dual Universe a lot now.

^ this x 1000. I'm all for naturally emergent gameplay here. Especially when we can be more creative.

Not really. The two games are based around entirely different concepts.
 
NMS is all about exploration. Get to the center of the galaxy as fast as you want, and discover a ton of crap along the way
 
DU is all about emergent gameplay, and creating a new world for yourself. 

There will also be overall fleet commander that would look over a whole battle and tell ships what to do
 
This means there will probably be flagships
 
There will also be carriers that have many smaller ships in side

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but micromanaging is what the LUA scripts are for. And you can't expect having such a powerful tool for free. I would suggest reading the devblog on what you just described. And Fusion Reactors need fuel, it's called hydrogen, and battleships run on fuel, DPUs (who are like CPUs), will need power. They confirmed there will be pipelines to bring power to different screens, modules etc. This is not EVE 2.0 with arbitrary HP points. You blow a ship's power grid off, you gutted them good.  
 
And where would you dock to refuel? The non-existing NPC docks? Players will make the fuel. Players will make the docks. And players want money. Ain't nobody building things for pretty's sake.
 
 
 
Yes, indeed, there should be an energy - string-of-commands ratio on how much a DPU consumes. Also, how a builder of a ship handles the cost vs the effectiveness of the ship is what the voxel building system is for and will show who has skill at making good ships, as the ships will have mass depending on materials. So, you can build a ship out of steel, but it will be heavy, OR you can build the ship's frame out of steel and its hull and outfit the interior with lesser grade materials of your choice, then balance the thrusters so the ship is not derpy on its flight and then you manage the amount of power cores. A good example would be the Titans in EVE. 
 
 
Sure, you can build the Titans of EVE in Dual, but it would take time for people to figure out the correct materials, fuel efficiency and how to fly iit. Dual is not a point and click adventure on a flat map like EVE is. A ship has to have thrusters above and below it to move up and down (similar to Space Engineers) and guess what, an accelerating, massive ship, will have to put more power into its thrusters to avoid an enemy ships broadside in a firing run. Again, this won't be like EVE's combat system where two ships stand across one another and pew pew, with random numbers dictating the outcome. DUAL aims for a lock-on system and those automated lock-ons of a ship like a Titan, would have to be powered to provent solo players from building them, but giving big organisations with resources a reason to establish dominance.
 
If you find calculating center of mass, researching ways of reducing mass on a ship and the correct way to build a ship's frame or having to learn how to script in LUA, then I am afraid that building ships is not for you. But hey, you can be the best pilot that ever's going to be. 
 
 
Peace good sirs.

But also, just because LUA is the coding engine you can write your bot script in, doesn't mean the API it has access to will be as all encompassing, as some have mentioned to a degree.

My thoughts go to modded Minecraft and the ComputerCraft mod. You had a 'Turtle' miner that you could program and there were rudimentary programs for movement and excavation, but this still required user input eventually both in the addition of more fuel as the process went on and in emptying the ever filling drop inventory.

I do appreciate games that reward creativity and design. If you can design cleverly a way to automate mining through the use of the tools you have but it took effort and materials and design, Why not let them have it?

The argument of it will destroy the economy is an interesting one, but inflation and prices will go as they go. Iron will be useful to build. So even though miners flood the market wastefully with iron, there are those that will buy it up at its cheaper price because they are trying to build a spacestation, or a new player trying to build out their first ship. Who hasn't been on WoW and seen someone flood the market with leathers only to buy them all up and resell them at a higher price? The market will adjust and people will do what they will to make money.

If mining iron no longer becomes profitable, how do they pay to keep the lights on? They'll have to modify and adapt their designs to mine other things, survive on other things. Then iron will go lapse again as another space station or capitol ship is build that destroys the market stock.

I'm not arguing for no moderation, but I don't believe we should limit ingenuity because some people could potentially make autonomous mining bots which can also be hunted for scrap since they don't have a human in them and can be easily fought since they are just following a code. I'm arguing that the same API that could provide mindless mining drones could also provide an unknown host of well thought out and never before seen creative robotics that make you just say, "wow.. I had no idea that was possible with this game." And those moments are not cheaply bought.

Welcome to DU.

Welcome! As long as they're no traps go ahead!

Hello and welcome to the forums! Ruins are definitely an awesome idea as it can contribute to the lore and history of the universe. Look forward to running into your creation.

(Posted Friday 18th of September 2015 on the DevBlog)     Big news! We just finished designing and implementing one of the most critical and distinguishing feature of Dual: the capability to script any construct that you make. A construct is anything that you build in the game, it can be a ship, a building, a space station, or whatever. It is a physical object, it can move, collide with stuff and potentially include hundreds of "Elements", which are operational units that you can craft or buy, and freely position inside your construct to add functionalities to it. Examples of Elements are: propulsion engines, control units (computers), doors, weapons, batteries, containers, accelerometers, radars, targeters, drone bay, elevator, and many more. The way the construct orchestrates all these Elements is through scripts, and what we call "Distributed Processing Units". Let's dive into it, and see what it can do.   Warning: The following Blog Post implies you already have some basic programming knowledge. If you don't, some parts may seem a bit obscure or difficult to understand.   This is going to be a slightly more technical and longer post than usual, but I hope people interested in the topic will find it entertaining. In any case, remember an important point: you don't need to understand anything about scripting or ship building to actually buy a ship and fly it. You actually don't even need to use a ship at all if you don't want, there are plenty of activities to do besides this in the game. It's a bit like in real life: you don't need to be a mechanics to drive a car, and some people just never drive anyway, they take a taxi. It all depends on your playing style, and what you expect from the game. But if you are interested in creating your constructs and scripting their behavior, I hope you won't be disappointed by the deepness of the gameplay experience we propose.   So, let's summarize again what a "construct" is: in Dual, you can assemble chunks of matter (stone, wood, iron, kevlar, etc...) in any way you like, a bit like in Minecraft, but instead of simple cubes, you can forge almost any shape you like. The technology behind this is called "Dual Contouring". This can be used to build the hull of a spaceship, the walls of a castle or a gigantic statue. Up to you. Attached to this inert structural skeleton, you can add some components called Elements, which are actual gameplay components that you can deploy in your construct to make it functional. In a spaceship, you need propulsion engines, fuel tanks, navigation instruments, one or several cockpits, etc. All of these are Elements. The collection of all Shapes and Elements are what constitutes a construct, which is a whole that can be moved once created and is subject to the laws of physics (for example, it falls if dropped in a gravitational field). A construct can be owned, traded, copied, etc, but this is another story we will discuss in another post. Right now we will concentrate on one particular aspect: how do you orchestrate all the Elements so that they can work together? We will take the particular viewpoint of a spaceship, which is a good way to illustrate the concepts involved, but this can apply to anything you like, including a giant spaghetti monster robot or whatnot.   In terms of game design, we could opt for an easy strategy here. If you have the required number of engines in the right direction (no matter where they are), and you check the list of instruments needed, it would "magically" fly. With this approach, all ships would fly the same. Trying to put more engines, or optimizing their position would be more or less useless. Hoping to have an AI helping with automatic navigation would be up to the engineers of Novaquark only. Fancy a new way to drive your ship? Impossible. How about the weapons system? How about drones? All this would be predefined and more or less rigidly identical for all players. That's not what we have in mind for Dual Universe. While we will provide basic templates to start with, you?ll be able to engineer your construct the way you want. Engines are real (they physically push your ship where they are, with the power they have), gravity is real, weapons have to turn and target (which also requires a targeter). If you are smarter than others, you can get the job done in a better way, get an edge in battle, or in trade by launching the new Falcon X-42 superfighter and change the balance of game combat with new tactics and possibilities. It?s not only about how you can use the predefined capabilities of ships within a predefined classical game setting, but it?s also about how you can redefine these capabilities. We call it: emergent gameplay.   Each Element is an active unit. It can do basically two things: emit "events" and execute "functions". Let's give some examples: a radar unit can emit events like "new enemy detected at (x,y,z)", a jet engine can execute a function like "set thrusting power to 45%", a weapon can execute the function "fire", etc. Technically events and functions are described a bit the same way: a name followed by parameters written between parentheses. The above examples would become something like:   enemyAt(x,y,z) setPower(45) fire()   Events are emitted spontaneously by the Element when something happens for which it has been designed to react to, and functions are services that the element can fulfill when it is asked to by some external agent. When considering a particular Element, you want to know the list of events it can emit and the list of functions it can fulfill. This is entirely defining what this Element is, from the point of view of the gameplay. We call it its "Type".
  Now, how do you orchestrate the interactions between several Elements, each emitting events and reacting to them, fulfilling functions in return, etc? The central notion we introduce here is what we call a "Distributed Processing Unit", or DPU in short. A DPU is a bit like a computer program, an orchestrator. It has several slots in which it is possible to plug Elements, and it contains a list of event handlers that can react to events emitted by the Elements plugged inside its slots. The schema below illustrate this:     Events handlers are conceptually quite simple: they are "condition => action" managers. On one side, there is a conditional filter, which is a generalization of an event from a given slot, with certain parameters set to given expected values, while other parameters can take a variable "free" value. A particular event emitted by an Element in a slot will be examined by all event handlers, and it will trigger the event handlers if the event signature matches the event handler filter.   To give an example: suppose that we have a filter like ?enemyAt(x, 42, y)?, associated to the ?radar? slot. Now the radar slot emits the event ?enemyAt(11,42,66)?. This event matched the filter and so will trigger the event handler. If the event ?enemyAt(12,13,66)? is emitted however, it will not match the filter (because 13 is not equal to 42). The schema below illustrate this point:     On the other side of an event handler is the action that the handler can trigger when the filter is matched. This is where LUA really enters the scene. The action is simply a piece of LUA code. LUA is a very simple and efficient scripting language, for which you can get many tutorials online. You can try this for a start.   Now what kind of code will you write on the LUA side? Basically anything you want, but, as you guessed, it will ultimately contain some calls to functions among those provided by the Elements plugged in the DPU slots. The syntax will be something like: "self.engine2.setPower(42)". The "self" prefix is a requirement of LUA, then comes the name of the slot, and then the name of a function available from the Element in that slot, together with its parameters between parenthesis.   That's it. That's the basics of what a DPU is and how scripting works. Let me summarize: a DPU is an orchestrator, it has several slots in which you can plug Elements. You can then define event handlers to catch events emitted by these plugged Elements, and react by executing LUA code, which includes calls to functions taken amongst the set of available functions of your plugged Elements.   To be more precise, I have to refine this picture a little bit: I talked about customizing a DPU, but exactly what DPU are we talking about? Where is it? In fact, the DPU you want to customize is stored inside a special Element called a "Control Unit". The DPU is started when you activate the Control Unit (go next to it and press the activation key). Notice that there is no problem with having several Control Units (hence, DPUs) inside the same construct, potentially all activated at the same time.   Now, the DPU inside a Control Unit is special because you'll have a GUI to freely customize it (plug stuff into the slots, define event handlers, etc). Actually, you can do even more than what I just described: you can define a set of events that your DPU is capable of emitting (event emission is done via a special LUA syntax inside your scripts). You can also define a set of functions associated to your DPU, and the corresponding LUA code that should be executed when this function is requested. If you remember, I presented the type of an Element as the set of events and functions exposed by this Element when plugged inside a DPU. Actually, the truth is that there is in fact a DPU inside each Element (albeit not a customizable one), and the events and functions of this Element are actually the events and functions of its DPU. Now to the important conclusion: it is not really Elements that you plug inside the slots of your Control Unit's customizable DPU. It is in fact DPUs. It can be the DPU of Elements, when you plug Elements, but it can be more generic or abstract DPUs. More about this now.   One particularly important "abstract" DPU is the System DPU. This DPU is capable of emitting events when keys are pressed. You almost always want to plug the System DPU, because you want to control your scripts with keystrokes bound to actions. So, typically, you will have several event handlers in your custom DPU to catch action events emitted by the System DPU. The System DPU is also capable of emitting "timeout" events when a timer is due, or at regular intervals, and many other useful functionalities.   You know enough now to script a simple spaceship controller. You need to put a least one Control Unit in the ship, and customize its DPU. Inside this DPU, you will plug the System DPU (typically in the "system" slot), plus at least 3 engines pointing upwards to lift the ship, and 2 more engines at the back of the ship to make it move forward. You need also to plug a gyro (more exactly: an inclinometer), which is an Element that provides the getPitch and getRoll functions, to know about the pitch/roll angles of your ship. And that's it. Now you set a timer with the system DPU (call the system.setTimer(0.1) function to set the update every 0.1 second) and catch the corresponding timeout event. When caught, you can then associate the LUA script that will query the gyro about the pitch/roll and use these values to correct the intensity of thrust power in your motors (using the setPower function) to stabilize the ship tilting. And of course, you will also catch the action events from the System DPU to inform your script about the direction in which the player wants to stir the ship. The exact details of how this is done in terms of control and dynamics are beyond the range of this post, but it involves simple Newtonian physics about torques and forces.   This above custom made Control Unit DPU could be seen as a black box, a ?Stabilizer?, with 7 slots (5 engines, 1 gyro and the System DPU). You can move this black box in what we call a Component DPU, so that you can sell/exchange it. Now players possessing your ?Stabilizer? can plug it in their own Control Unit DPU along with their own Elements, and then connect these Elements in the Component slots, with a simple drag and drop interface, or a smart ?autoconfigure? system, making the whole process of scripting a ship very simple for those who don?t want to put their hand on code:     The DPU system goes ways beyond this simple ship stabilization example. Weapon control, whether in FPS direct view on a jet fighter, or in tactical overall view in a battleship, will be handled with DPUs. Scripting a drone can be done with DPUs. Setting the automatic defense mechanism of your castle can be made with DPUs. Factories can be automated with DPUs, etc. It's all about orchestrating Elements and Component DPUs via scripts that react to events and execute LUA code. The user interface is also scriptable to decide what happens when the Control Unit is activated, how Elements can display their status and give access to parameters (we will probably talk about this in another blog post).   Novaquark will be providing several useful "starter" Component DPUs to start with, as well as smart autoconfigure options to handle the most basic cases. You can get a ship to fly without knowing a thing about DPUs. But, if you are interested in this aspect of the game, it will be up to you to build from there and create the most amazing control system and contraptions, win the markets or the wars with them and leave your mark in the Dual Universe history of innovation and engineering!   JC Baillie, Project Lead.